Summary: Our heart can only be healthy if we are close to God's heart. God can heal the wounded spirit and the sin sick and broken heart.

We live in a world that is filled with hurting people. There are so many ways that people can be hurt and most of the world around them would never see the pain they bear. The physical pain that many suffer from injuries or some type of disease that causes a lifetime of suffering are the most visible, and they are often debilitating, but in many ways, the physical pain is much easier to deal with than the other types of hurting that are unseen.

I wonder how many of you here right now are suffering from emotional pain? You do a good job of covering it up. You’ve learned how to put on a smile, wear a mask in public and go about your business, hoping that no one around you can see the real you on the inside. We all go through those times when our emotions get the best of us.

I’ve seen even the strongest man cry in times of great distress and sadness, or become capable of killing even that which he loves in a moment of heated anger.

I’ve seen mothers cry over their children who have caused emotional damage through saying or doing things that leave her distraught and wondering where she could have gone so wrong in raising her child.

I’ve seen children whose emotions are so mixed up and so hurt that they are nearly dysfunctional in society. Sometimes it’s the parents, or friends, or perhaps another sibling that does something terrible, or continually says something, or does something that makes a child feel so unworthy, so useless and so unloved.

In our time there is a great emphasis being placed upon the fact that there is so much bullying going on in our schools, on the job, in sports and I suppose anywhere in life where people are interacting with one another.

Bullying isn’t something new. When you think about it, I doubt if there is one person in this crowd who hasn’t either been bullied or been a bully at some point in your life. Bullying has been around since the creation of man and I don’t think we could ever eradicate it, no matter how many laws we pass.

The problem is that in order to stop bullying we have to focus on the condition of the heart, not upon the action that it produces. As long as there is a black heart, filled with the sins of pride, envy, greed, jealousy and everything else that can trigger bullying, then the action of bullying will never go away.

One of the greatest preachers of the 19th century, Rev. Charles Spurgeon, spoke forth a message in which he said:

“Man is a double being: he is composed of body and soul, and each of the portions of man may receive injury and hurt. The wounds of the body are extremely painful, and if they amount to a breaking of bones the pain is terrible indeed. Yet God has in his mercy provided means whereby wounds may be healed and injuries to the body repaired.

When a wounded soldier who comes from the battlefield, he knows that he will find the hand of a surgeon to remove any object that has wounded his body, and there are healing medicines that can be used to treat his wounds. Though the pain may be great, and the suffering last a long time, yet there may yet come a day when he can resume a full and productive life.